1 Introduction

I remember the first experience I had with the feeling of fear. When I was 3 years old, my dad had played a little prank on me after he picked me up from school. Looking back on the memory now, I realise that my dad should never be left responsible for a child, let alone having a son.

As we got out of the car and got to the front door of our home, my dad collapsed onto his knees. He grasped his heart tightly with his hand and tried to stabilise his shaking body against the door. He locked eyes with me, panting quicker and quicker with a look of panic. I didn't know what to do at that point, as I tried to calm my dad by hugging him tightly. Then, he fell flat on the floor like a mannequin with its strings cut.

I stared at my dad wide-eyed. Feelings of loss... shock... anxiety... fear surged within my heart, as my head spun, my stomach tying knots and my legs losing strength. I knelt next to the unmoving body, tears slowly starting to form, flowing onto the cold pavement.

I screamed, "DAD! DAD!".

Weeping into his chest, I feared my dad had just died right in front of me.

Not long after I started shouting for help, my piece of sh*t dad sprung right back onto his feet and hugged me dearly. His bright idea for a 'prank' may have just scarred me for life, and had introduced me to the feeling of abandonment, the raw emotion of fear.

The neighbours came out due to all the noise and just stared at the father son duo. They probably told my mom when she got off work, because as soon as she came home, she went straight to beating my dad black and blue.

The feeling of fear stayed with me when I got back to preschool. I decided to try and scare one my classmates, just to see their reaction, their way of processing fear. In the playground, I said I wanted to play tag with him.

"You won't be able to catch me because you're the slowest in the class."

This got him riled up, as he chased me furiously. I lured him close to the wall, letting him tag me. The moment I felt his hand, I jumped straight into the wall, rocking my head back to act like I had just hit my head. I sprawled on the floor unmoving just like dad did. This scared the sh*t out of the classmate. He just froze up and started crying on his knees. A teacher heard the commotion and hurried over to the scene of the 'murder'.

The classmate cried, "I killed him! I killed him!" over and over again, making the teacher scared as well as she tried to wake me up by gently shaking me. At this point, I was enjoying myself too much so I continued to play dead.

It wasn't until the ambulance came that I stopped playing dead. I told the truth of my prank to the teacher and classmate because I didn't want the classmate to feel bad, thinking he had seriously hurt me. This got me in massive trouble, getting suspended and earning myself a beating from mom.

However, throughout the whole prank on my classmate, I never once stopped feeling joy. I seriously struggled keeping the smile off my face whilst my classmate cried his heart out. Hearing my teacher's panic, made me experience a wave euphoria like I have never felt before.

This kickstarted my unhealthy obsession with terrifying others, and also led me to becoming a hero, just to be able to legally traumatise villains for fun.